


Snowglobe

by Dee_Laundry



Category: House M.D.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-25
Updated: 2007-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-17 11:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dee_Laundry/pseuds/Dee_Laundry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re a clever boy; I knew you’d catch on eventually.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snowglobe

**Author's Note:**

> More of an idea than a fic. Spoilers up to episode 3-11, "Words and Deeds." Quotations from the opening passage are from the series itself. The ever-excellent [](http://daisylily.livejournal.com/profile)[**daisylily**](http://daisylily.livejournal.com/) betaed an early version but then I messed with it ~~, so the suckiness is solely my fault~~.

_29 year old female, first seizure one month ago, lost the ability to speak. Babbled like a baby. Present deterioration of mental status._

 _See that? They all assume I’m a patient because of this cane._

 _So put on a white coat like the rest of us._

 _I don’t want them to think I’m a doctor._

 _You see where the administration might have a problem with that attitude._

 _  
_

* * *

_I have two brothers._

 _Why wouldn’t you tell me –_

 _It was irrelevant._

 _Why not?_

 _Because he’s not in my life any more._

 _  
_

* * *

_I’ve got no kids, my marriage sucks; I’ve only got two things that work for me: this job and this stupid, screwed-up friendship, and neither mattered enough to you to give one lousy speech._

 _They matter._

 _  
_

* * *

_Does it occur to you that maybe there’s some deeper guidance than keep your mouth shut? That maybe a friend might value concern over glibness? That maybe... maybe I’m going through something that I need to have an actual conversation about?_

 _Does it occur to you that if you need that kind of a friend, that you may have made some deeper errors?_

 _  
_

* * *

_Nothing’s changed?_

 _Nothing’s changed._

* * *

The lines around Wilson’s eyes creased and crinkled. All these years of friendship – if ever a word was inadequate, that’d be it – and they ended up here: on House’s couch, with Wilson’s left hand shoved so deeply into the front of House’s jeans that his circulation was in danger of being cut off.

“I love you, House,” he confessed for the first time. “More than anyone in the world. Have for ages.”

His nerves were tingling, in a completely unexpected pattern.

“This feels… wrong,” Wilson noted, without slacking his pace. “Not emotionally wrong, but physically wrong. Strange. Odd.”

With one eyebrow raised, House responded, “Like masturbating?”

“Yes, exactly! Like I’m feeling what you are, hooked into your nervous system.”

“You’re a clever boy; I knew you’d catch on eventually.” Sitting up, House pulled Wilson’s hand away, and Wilson groaned at the loss of friction.

“Catch on?” he gritted.

“To who I am.” House was smiling broadly in a way Wilson couldn’t recall ever seeing on him, proudly and happily, without a trace of either sadness or scorn.

Fascinated, Wilson rubbed a thumb lightly over that smile. “What do you mean?”

“I’m you, you damn goof. I’m the parts you’re pretending aren’t there: the pain and the nastiness, the brilliance and obsessive tendencies, the fear and loneliness and humor. All those parts have tortured you, and still you love them beyond anything else. Don’t you think it’s time you claimed them? Don’t you think it’s time you gave yourself a happy ending?”

  
Jimmy Wilson snapped awake. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, thinking back over the dream he’d just had. The details were slipping already, but the message was clear. He repeated the dream’s story in his mind several times; it seemed important to remember, to seal the story and the message together.

After a few minutes, he went out to the living room, switched on a lamp, and shook his older brother awake. “Hey, you, up.”

“Huh? What? Time?” David’s curly brown hair was a mess, and he had a crease in his cheek from sleeping against the couch cushion’s seam.

“I don’t know what time it is; that’s not important. I have to tell you something. Sit up, c’mon.” He pulled, pushed, and poked David into a sitting position.

After a few blinks and a vigorous shake, David was fully awake. He tugged Jimmy down next to him. “OK, little brother, what’s so important for me to give up my sorely needed beauty sleep?”

Jimmy felt calm, relaxed, and resolute. It was a good feeling, one he’d have to achieve more often.

“I can’t get married today.”

“What?” David grimaced and rubbed the mark on his cheek. “Little late to get cold feet.”

“It’s not cold feet. I can’t get married. I won’t. It’s not right for me now – maybe not ever.”

“Not to repeat myself, but what? You just wake up and don’t love Jenny any more?”

“I do love Jenny,” Jimmy insisted. “Some. Just not enough. I don’t want to hurt her, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with her, either.”

“What is all this? Yesterday everything was great, and you were so excited about the wedding I thought you were going to split my skull when I was late picking up the tuxes.”

“I had a dream.”

“You and Martin Luther King,” David smirked.

“Shut it. This is important. I had a dream in which you had gone crazy and run away from home. You were homeless, living on the street, and then I lost track of you completely. I was pretty sure you were dead but didn’t know for sure.”

“Wow, that’s a crappy dream. Thanks a lot for making me nuts, Jimmy.”

“That’s just one part of it. Most of it was about this friend I had, a really smart guy but bitter and sarcastic – would cut anybody down to size just for the fun of it.”

David rolled his eyes and stretched out his back. “Doesn’t sound familiar. At all.”

“There’s a lot more, so let me finish. We were doctors together, this guy and I. He had damaged his leg badly, and had to use a cane, and was in constant pain. As you can imagine, this upped the bitterness quotient significantly, but we were still friends. Best friends. I could make him laugh, and that was so cool.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It was, in moments, but he was also addicted to pain pills and then pissed off this mean billionaire who got me fired, and then pissed off this crazy cop, who froze my money and took everything I owned. It was a total parallel to the story of Job in the Bible, except for the boils. No boils. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I was married three times, and divorced three times, and my friend had something to do with every break-up.”

“You were shtupping him?” David’s eyebrows raised in tandem.

“No. Just… spending a lot of time with him.” Jimmy’s neck twinged; he gave it a quick rub.

“So you wanted to shtup him.”

“Shut up with the shtupping. So, as I was saying, the crazy cop took everything. I got it back, but then my friend almost OD’d. He went into rehab, and into jail for a night, but the point was he didn’t change. He was still addicted, still miserable, still crazy, still my best friend. To make a long story short –”

“Too late!” David smirked, and Jimmy shoved his shoulder hard.

“It turned out at the end of the dream that that friend of mine was never real. He was just a manifestation of the parts of me I don’t want to admit to.”

“Freudian.”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “It’s not Freudian. Freud’s all about the penis.”

“So you were shtupping the guy!”

“Shut up! There was no guy! It was all me! I’ve been pushing so hard to be what I think other people want that I’ve forgotten who I really am. I decided to marry Jenny because that’s what people do after they finish medical school – get a wife, kill themselves in residency, have kids, buy a mini-mansion and join a country club, and bitch about taxes and the cost of college these days.”

Pursing his lips, David tapped his chin thoughtfully. “You don’t have to join a country club.”

“David,” Jimmy said warningly, exasperated. “None of it is actually wrong, but it’s not what I want. I don’t know what I want, so I have to take some time off and figure it out.”

David put his arm around his younger brother’s shoulders and squeezed just once. “Yeah. You do,” he said quietly.

Nodding, Jimmy continued, “I’m going to break up with Jenny and postpone my residency for a year.”

“Postpone? You’re not giving up the doctor thing entirely?”

“I don’t think so. I like it. I think I could be good at it, if I play to my strengths. It’s the rest of my life I’ve got to figure out. I was a miserable failure in that dream, David. In every area of life except helping patients and being that guy’s friend. Even being a friend I wasn’t always all that great at.” This was all horribly embarrassing to admit, but along with the embarrassment came relief. Jimmy chanced a look at his brother, and felt the warmth of his sea-blue eyes.

“I don’t want to be a failure like that in real life, David. I can’t; it’s too soul-crushing. You’ll help me, won’t you?” He hoped David would cut him some slack for the pleading tone.

David nudged him in the ribs with an elbow and smirked. “Yeah, little bro, I will. I’m already coming up with ways to run interference with Mom and Dad, and I think you should travel. Get the hell out of here; see somewhere else, when you actually have time to enjoy it. I’ve got some friends who’ve traveled almost everywhere – maybe you can get some ideas from them.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s what brothers are for. And you deserve it, Jimmy,” he said seriously. “You deserve to be happy.”

They smiled at each other, and then David spoke again.

“Hug me, and you’re getting an Indian burn.”

Jimmy watched fondly as David grabbed the remote from the coffee table and started cycling through the early morning news shows.

* * *

Hearing a burst of raucous laughter, he looked up from his book. The three travelers down the aisle – two men and one woman, mid-twenties like him, with a distinct air of adventure about them – were doubled over, slapping knees and punching shoulders.

At one time, he would have ignored them and stayed to himself, jealous of their camaraderie. But then again, at one time, he would’ve been running in place, striving earnestly for the suburban ideal instead of rambling through Europe on this train.

He tucked his book in his back pocket and approached them with a smile. “Any of you know when this train gets to the next stop?”

“No,” said the red-headed man closest to him, “but it may be a while. Which is good, because it’s going to take Karl forever to finish this story.”

“Like your stories are ever short,” the woman teased. She looked up and stuck out her hand. “I’m Amy; come join us.”

He smiled, shook her hand, and sat next to her in one quick move. “My name’s Jimmy, but you can call me House.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a reference to the ending of the TV show _St. Elsewhere_.


End file.
